Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Pepperdine to cut two sports

Pepperdine University in California (not a good time to be a California school!) announced this week that it will eliminate two sports from its varsity line-up: men's track and women's swimming and diving. Track will have its last season this year and swimming/diving, which received outside monies, will compete through the 2009-2010 season.
The sports were eliminated because of--not surprisingly--budget issues. These two in particular were chosen, according to Pepperdine, because they do not compete in the school's primary conference affiliations: West Coast Conference and Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.
Men's track actually had only been competing in distance events since its reinstatement in 2008 (it was cut in 1972) and appears to be comprised only of runners already on the cross country team.